Sciences
Subject: OPERATING SYSTEMS (A.A. 2023/2024)
degree course in COMPUTER SCIENCE
| Course year | 2 |
|---|---|
| CFU | 9 |
| Teaching units |
Unit Sistemi operativi
Information Technology (lesson)
|
| Moodle portal | |
| Exam type | oral |
| Evaluation | final vote |
| Teaching language | Italiano |
Teachers
Overview
- Knowledge and understanding: at the end of the course the student should have acquired the design and usage fundamentals of a modern, multi-programmed, time-shared operating system.
- Applying knowledge and understanding: at the end of the course the student should be able to apply the knowledge acquired to UNIX administration, performance evaluation and source code study of a GNU/Linux operating system.
- Making judgements: the student at the end of the course should be able to recognize by himself the appropriate approaches and techniques in modern operating systems.
- Communicating skills: at the end of the course the student should be able to discuss his findings with an appropriate technical jargon.
- Learning skills: The lectures should stimulate the learning skills and to go deep in subjects connected with the ones presented during class: to use the command line consciously, learn concurrent programming and explore the main subsystems of an operating system (scheduler, memory manager, I/O subsystem).
Admission requirements
Programming I
Course contents
Main topics covered:
- Introduction and context
- Structure of a computing system
- Operating system components and services
- Processes and threads
- CPU scheduling
- Process synchronization
- Deadlock
- Memory management
- Virtual memory
- File system
- I/O subsystem
- Disk subsystem
The student's advancement is verified through an oral examination consisting of theory questions and exercises.
Teaching methods
The class is held almost entirely in lab. During a typical lesson the students learn the minimum amount of theory that allows them to do basic exercises. After that, they are challenged in solving progressively more complex exercises. The teacher corrects instantly the mistakes made by students and clarifies their doubts. Each week, one hour is dedicated to recap the most important topics and clarify doubts or solve issues. This activity is held in a normal classroom. Every week the teacher submits three realistic and difficult tasks to students, and guides them to their solution exclusively through hints. These exercises are optional and intended only for those students who wish to deepen their knowledge in the different areas. The first student to solve the exercises acquires bonus points that will be added to the exam final vote. Worker students who cannot attend classes can download lecture slides and lab archives.
Assessment methods
The exam consists of three oral questions and is carried out with the aid of a PC. Its main goal is twofold: * verify that the student has learnt the material explained in class. * verify that the student can apply the learnt material in real scenarios, using a PC terminal. The first question is an exercise which must be sketched out, solved and commented by the student in 15 minutes. If the student fails to solve the exercise, he fails immediately. The remaining two questions are mainly oral. Each question is worth 10 points. The final grade is the sum of the three grades obtained in each question plus all the bonus points acquired by solving the weekly exercises.
Learning outcomes
- Knowledge and understanding: through the theory taught before each set of exercises and through tutoring with the teacher, at the end of the course the student should have acquired the design and usage fundamentals of a modern, multi-programmed, time-shared operating system.
- Applying knowledge and understanding: through lab exercises, at the end of the course the student should be able to apply the knowledge acquired to UNIX administration, performance evaluation and source code study of a GNU/Linux operating system.
- Making judgements: through exercies carried out independently by the student and with the help of the teacher's tutoring, at the end of the course he should be able to recognize by himself the appropriate approaches and techniques in modern operating systems.
- Communicating skills: the weekly exercises allow the student to discuss his findings with an appropriate technical jargon. The final exam allows the students to discuss learnt concepts appropriately and to carry on a discussion on relevant topics.
- Learning skills: the study of current literature, the discussions with the teacher and carefully selected exercises should stimulate the learning skills and to go deep in subjects connected with the ones presented during class.